


Only Speak the Truth

by darthneko



Category: Vagrant Story
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-19
Updated: 2001-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 08:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1812214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthneko/pseuds/darthneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A game of chess and truths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Speak the Truth

_"Most men accept knowledge as truth;_  
they are sheep, ruled by fear."  
\- Sydney Losstarot

Slender fingers reached out, bright in the firelight. The sharp tips of two razors carefully and deftly hooked into the curved ridges of an ebony playing piece, plucking it from the board, and an ivory piece was knocked aside as the black one was repositioned. "Check," Sydney said softly. "You're not paying attention, Riskbreaker. You should have seen that three moves ago."

"Before or after falling asleep?" Ashley sighed. He looked over the playing board set on the small table between them, where the white pieces were fighting a loosing battle to the black. "I concede. Your game."

Sydney made a sound in the back of his throat. "That's not like you, Riot."

"Call it boredom," Ashley replied, leaning back in his chair, arms reaching into a broad stretch.

The other man said nothing. Reaching out, he began to rearrange the pieces back to their original positions upon the board. To Ashley, watching from beneath half closed eyes, it was a dance of light and shadows. The firelight flickering in the hearth gleamed liquid gold and silver off of Sydney's hands as they moved across the board, each piece lifted and set down with exact precision, not a scratch marring them. "We could always play variant rules, if you're bored," Sydney suggested, fingers clinking softly as he aligned the rows of pawns. "Or," grey eyes glanced up from under pale lashes, "you could go back to practicing."

Ashley glanced sullenly at the darkened window with its heavy drapes. The snow outside was piled nearly to the sills of the first floor windows below and still falling, thick heavy flakes that clung wetly and blanketed everything. They had been falling for nearly two days with no sign of stopping, the entire town populace buried indoors beside fires as the temperatures dropped. "Unless practice is suddenly going to give me the power to move this damn storm off our heads," he said wryly, "I'm not _that_ bored. What sort of variant?"

Sydney made another small noise of disapproval, but continued to sort the last of his own pieces. As the final rook slid into place he drew back, head tilted slightly as he considered. "Extremes?" he suggested.

"Speed, you mean? No." Ashley leaned his head against one hand. "You'd have me beat in ten moves or less."

The other man's smile held a pleased glint. "It's a wise man that knows his weaknesses."

"It's a foolish man who challenges his teacher to a losing battle," Ashley countered. "You've years of experience over me at playing this."

Sydney gently tipped his king with one finger. "Perhaps we should keep the rules simple, then. And if you're bored... we could gamble on the outcome."

"Gamble," Ashley repeated slowly, eyes narrowing. The other man's expression was mild, telling him nothing. "For what stakes?"

"Coin, if you want to be traditional," Sydney suggested, but there was a disdainful tone underlying the words. "Or a favor... some task or a request. A debt."

The older man's fingers drummed a slow rhythm against the table top as Ashley considered. "What would you wager for?" he asked at last.

Sydney tilted his head back, hair sliding away from his face. "Truths," he said quietly.

Ashley's motion ceased, his hands resting still. "What do you mean?"

"Truths," Sydney repeated softly. "A question asked, a true answer given." He plucked the black king from the board, holding it up. "One chance for each piece taken."

"Games within games, Sydney?"

"Relieving boredom, Riot," Sydney replied with a sliver of a smile. "You're hardly the only one tired of these same rooms."

Ashley said nothing for a moment, then leaned forward, taking the chess piece from the other man and setting it firmly back down on the board. "One question for each piece lost. And for the winner..."

"A single forfeit," Sydney said. "One request, within reason."

"Within reason," Ashley echoed. He lifted one pawn from each side of the board, cupping them between his hands. They rattled woodenly as he shook them. When he extended his closed fists Sydney silently indicated one, only shrugging slightly when Ashley opened his hand to reveal the white pawn and reached to rotate the board between them.

"Truths and forfeits," Ashley mused quietly as Sydney, with little to ponder, reached out to nudge one of his bishop pawns forward. "I never know what your game really is. Are you playing to win, or to lose?"

Sydney's smile was cool, barely curving across his lips. "I always play to win, Riskbreaker."

Ashley started to reach out towards his own rank of pawns, then paused, fingertip just touching one. "But I haven't taken a piece," he hazarded, "so that answer may not be true."

The smile spread, bright in the other man's pale eyes. "You're learning," Sydney approved.

Ashley said nothing, only plucked the pawn from the board and grimly set it down again in its new position. "Play," he growled.

Within two more rounds of turns, pawns shuffled across the board in opening moves, Sydney claimed the first piece. He lifted it almost gently from the table, watching it dangle from the tips of his fingers. Ashley sighed. "Ask."

Sydney set the pawn down on the table beside the playing board. He did not look up, his eyes hooded. "Why did you bring me out of the cathedral?"

Silence followed the words, broken only by the muted crackle of the fire in the hearth. Ashley, abruptly more alert than he had been for hours, was staring at the younger man in something like fascinated horror. "What?"

"In Lea Monde," Sydney clarified gently, as though the words might mean anything else between them. "Why did you save me? You were disoriented, wounded, tired... you could have saved yourself with much more ease had you not been burdened with me."

Ashley let out a slow breath, hands clenched upon the table. "Gods, Sydney..."

"Truth, Riskbreaker," Sydney snapped softly, the words sharp. "Play the game."

A game with suddenly revealed claws, sharp and deadly, hidden behind pale eyes and paler lashes. Ashley swallowed dryly. The words were difficult to get out and at length he had to close his eyes, blocking away the sight of Sydney's still and silent face. "Because... because I needed you. You were the only one who knew what damned thing you had given me, or what to do with it." He forced his eyes open, meeting the other man's cool gaze. "Because... I had to."

Sydney said nothing, one silver capped knuckle brushing lightly across his lips as he watched Ashley, the focus in his eyes hazy and distant. "Truth," he agreed at last and Ashley found he could breathe again. "Your turn."

The board, with it's silent little rows of carved playing pieces, had taken on an entirely new dimension. Ashley studied it for several long breaths before reaching out with a carefully controlled hand to make his next move.

The next piece, rounds later, was his.

Sydney said nothing as he lifted the pawn from the board, expressionless and calm. They had played together often enough that Ashley knew it to be a calculated loss - a piece sacrificed while Sydney maneuvered his king into a better position. The loss this time, though, had a greater significance; Ashley turned the small ivory piece between his fingers as Sydney silently waited.

"Why me?" he asked at last, putting the piece down with a thump on the table.

The other man made no attempt to evade or misunderstand the question. Steel fingers slid together, metal on metal, as Sydney folded his hands across one upraised knee. "I told you at the time. Because you didn't want it. A man who desires power will be consumed by it - one who does not want it may rule it, rather than be ruled by it. Desire is a weakness; one the inheritor of the Dark can not afford."

"That's a reason for picking a type of man," Ashley corrected him coolly. "I want to know why you picked _me_."

Sydney's eyes met his, unreadable and unruffled. "Because you have the strength for it."

Numbly, Ashley sat back. The taste in his mouth was bitter as he watched Sydney look over the board, unconcerned, and reach out to move another piece.

It was a game of tactics and strategy, a war played out in miniature upon a battleground board. Ashley had grasped the rules and varieties of play quickly when Sydney had first sat down to teach him and was a capable opponent; Sydney, however, had been playing since he was a child and his strategies had a relentless strength that Ashley was hard put to match. He could only watch, teeth clenched, as another two black pieces, a pawn and a knight, fell in quick succession.

The pawn's question had come easily, simple curiosity, and if it stung then it was only Ashley's own feelings which made it so. "Your family - what were their names?"

He had met Sydney's eyes unflinching. "Tia. And Marco." Not painless, but over quickly. It was his own carelessness, too focused on the capture of Sydney's dark aligned bishop, which cost him the knight a move later.

Sydney set it down beside the others, a tiny cluster of captured pieces, and Ashley unconsciously tensed as the younger man looked at him. "Your family," Sydney repeated softly. "Would you go back to them, if you could?"

"That's impossible," Ashley said harshly. "Even the Dark can't turn back time."

"That isn't what I asked," Sydney said. His words were quiet and relentless. "If it was - if some miracle made it possible - would you resume that life? Husband, father?"

To go back... all he could think of was the warm sweet scent of a summer day and the liquid gleam of sunlight on golden hair. Ashley's hands, upon the table, were white knuckled and stiff. "Hells yes," he ground out, voice choked.

Sydney tilted his head back, considering. "Really?"

"One piece, one question," Ashley snapped and reached for his remaining knight.

The bishop eluded him but he managed to capture Sydney's knight, in fair exchange for his own. He put it down and drew a breath. "You said desire is too dangerous," he challenged. "Did _you_ want it?"

He thought he saw something flicker in Sydney's eyes and the other man's response was a heartbeat slow in coming, the low voice toneless. "I was six, Riskbreaker. A child doesn't grasp the concept of power the way a man does. Desire meant nothing." He exhaled, the sound a soft sigh. "I learned to rely on it. That is its own weakness."

Ashley could only stare at him, stunned. "Six? Surely..."

"One question," Sydney said sharply, interrupting, and reached out to slide his queen over a square. "Check."

Swearing silently, Ashley could only turn back to the board and search for a way to remove his king from peril.

They went several more rounds, the plays more careful and less willing to lose ground on either side. Ashley, when he removed a rook, hesitated a long moment before placing it on the table. "Why do you stay?" he asked at last.

Sydney's lips curved gently. "Because you need me, Riskbreaker." Slender fingers reached out, threading through the pieces on the board to lift a bishop and easily slide it in a long diagonal, capturing a black pawn. "Eye for an eye, Riot... _do_ you need me?"

His throat was dry, heavy and copper tainted somewhere near the back of his tongue. "Yes." Truths. As simple and stark as the pieces between them.

Silent, Sydney set the pawn down and waited.

Around and around in silent circles, the tension winding tighter within Ashley when either of them reached to move a piece. He almost didn't take the move when it presented itself, unwilling to lift another ivory piece from the board, but neither could he let it be. Lungs still, Ashley slid the bishop aside, his rook taking its place. "Check."

Sydney inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement. When Ashley said nothing more the other man shrugged slightly. "Ask."

Swallowing, Ashley placed the captured piece down. "What do _you_ get from this, Sydney?"

The other man might have been carved of the same ivory as his pieces, the mask of his expression firmly in place. Only his eyes, beneath pale lashes, glittered. "What else do I have? This gives me a place. A payment upon a debt. What you choose to give, Ashley. Just you." Quiet and cool, but the finger tips which hooked around the horse head shape of a knight fumbled just slightly, the tip of a razor nicking the smooth finish.

Ashley hesitated, his hand over the board. In a flash he could see it, the moves mapped out in patterns across his mind's eye. He stilled the thought and reached down, another piece sliding across the board. "Check."

Sydney leaned forward, lips pursed as he surveyed the board. "You're getting better," he conceded at length, shifting his queen to remove one of the rooks threatening his king. Ashley, shoulders stiff, waited.

Ebony dangled gently from sharp steel as Sydney held the piece, considering. "If it was possible," he said softly, "would you give it back?"

"To you?" Ashley's voice was strained in the quiet of the room. Sydney nodded once, carefully putting the chess piece down, his eyes turned away.

The smooth wood of the chair arm was solid under Ashley's clenched fist. "No," he whispered. "No, I wouldn't." Sydney's gaze flickered up, eyes narrowed. "You said it yourself," Ashley said. "You relied upon it. You've had it too long."

The other man's shoulders stiffened, lips pressed thin. "Truths," he said softly. "They're not always pleasant to the ear, are they? Your turn, Riskbreaker."

It hung there before him, whispering softly, a web of possibilities. Ashley shifted another piece and watched as Sydney moved his own. Twice more and slowly, step by step, he watched the pattern take shape until he could reach out, shifting the white queen from her position. Across the small table, Sydney stiffened, biting back an irritable sound at his own lapse.

"Check," Ashley said. "Do you trust me?"

Sydney swallowed before answering. Ashley could track the motion in the long line of the younger man's throat and in the leap of muscles along his jaw. "Yes. I would have to, wouldn't I?" Almost defiantly he caught the tip of the crowned king, sliding it one space to the right.

The final pattern fell into place with silent, startling clarity. He hadn't expected it to. Not really. It was with a sense of disbelief that he watched as his own hands slid the black queen down the board, plucking away the remaining white rook. "Mate."

Incredulous, Sydney leaned forward, studying the board. Ashley sat back, feeling drained, his hands trembling as he ran them across his eyes.

Sydney sat back as well after several long moments, shaking his hair away from his face with an impatient toss. "Well done. That was unexpected."

"Then you were playing to win," Ashley said. Sydney's glance was sour.

"Of course." Slender shoulders rose and fell. "Well, then. Checkmate, Riot, your game."

"My forfeit," Ashley replied and Sydney inclined his head, the firelight sliding over pale hair.

"Yes." His abrupt smile had an amused quality to it. "So what would you have of me, Ashley Riot? A week of silence?"

Ashley pushed a loose lock of hair back from his face, letting go a slow breath even as the tight knot in his middle grew harder. "No. Proof, Sydney."

A crease tightened between the other man's brow. "Of what?"

"Your last answer." Ashley met Sydney's eyes, seeing the understanding there. He had to clear his throat before speaking. "Stand up. Go to the center of the room and close your eyes."

There was a pause measured in heartbeats before Sydney, smile fading, pushed himself up from his chair. "Children's games, Riot?" he asked, tone disdainful. His feet made no sound on the carpet but the tips of his fingers clinked softly as he folded them, one against the other. His back, when he stood, was stiff and straight as he obediently closed his eyes.

Ashley breathed out. Free of the other man's pale gaze, he could wet dry lips and dig hard fingertips into the tension filled ache at the base of his neck. "Keep them closed. When I speak your name you may open them and we will call this game and this forfeit done."

"Understood," Sydney replied shortly. He stood still, only his head moving slightly to unconsciously turn towards the sound as Ashley slid his own chair back and rose to his feet.

The carpet muffled his steps as he paced a slow, deliberate circle around the other man. Sydney's head turned, accurately following the sound, but the younger man made no other motion and said nothing.

One entire circle, start to finish, measured in careful steps as all the while his thoughts raced. Only when he came to the beginning of the circle did Ashley stop, drawing a silent breath.

"Gylda." Kildean, one of the thousand glyphs of an ancient dead language carved across the stones of Lea Monde's very walls. The whispered sound was harsh on his tongue, spoken with the careful ease of recent practice. It rippled into the air of the room, the first sound of a greater summoning, like a key sliding into the lock of the very fabric of the world, the Dark flooding the syllable in a rush. Sydney's indrawn breath was a startled gasp.

"Ashley..."

"Hold," Ashley hissed sharply and Sydney froze, one hand half upraised. "Proof," Ashley whispered. "Do you trust me?"

Sydney's throat worked soundlessly for a long moment. His hand dropped back down, fingers tightly clenched. "Be careful what you call, Riskbreaker," he warned tersely.

The silence stretched, tight and thick. When Ashley spoke again a taut tremor slid through Sydney's clenched muscles, across the width of his pale skinned back. "Gylda," Ashley repeated softly, voice firm. It was the first word of a half dozen different summoning spells that Sydney had insisted he learn.

Another step, repeating the circle, and when he leaned in to speak the second word Sydney flinched. "Meundes." A second step, Sydney's breath catching as the Dark around them swirled, gathering relentlessly to Ashley's words. "Haati."

A third step, and he could see the tension trembling through Sydney's frame, but the other man's eyes remained closed. Ashley bent his head, the fourth sound whispered against the pale skin of one shoulder. "Salba."

Sydney stiffened, head half turning, frowning in startled puzzlement. Ashley cut him off before he could speak, the next sound brushed against pale gleaming hair. "Ssom." The Dark slid around them, stirred but undirected, the words strung in a meaningless pattern that sparkled and faded again with each syllable.

Another step, the sound pressed to Sydney's upturned forehead, the younger man breathing a long, low sigh. "Erulkes."

"Ashley," Sydney whispered, but the other man had already moved on.

Twice around, slow and steady, the trail of sounds winding the Dark heavy and warm around them like the drape of a shroud. Muscle by taut muscle Sydney relaxed, standing still and silent within the center of the gathering, eyes closed as Ashley's voice whispered words of gathering power across his skin.

When Ashley halted before Sydney he could see no flinch in the slender shoulders. The other man's face was lifted up, quiet, without the tiny motions to hear or track. Closing his own eyes, Ashley breathed the last sound softly against parted lips. "Sydney."

Their exhaled breath was shared, warm and close, mirrored in mouths only a hair's breadth apart. "Do you trust me?" Ashley whispered softly.

"Yes."

Opening his eyes, Ashley looked into a gaze of palest blue. "Truth," he breathed, agreeing. "And now you believe it, too." His words trembled on the gathered Dark, shivering between them like the brush of lip against lip, something bared and rawly intimate, hanging suspended on the moment.

Sydney's eyes told him nothing, the veiled shutters drawing closed once more. "When did the pupil outlearn the teacher?" he whispered softly. When he drew away Ashley let him go, the loss shivering cold through the Dark.

\- end -

> _Gylda-meundes-haati-smohta..._  
>  Ferdes-raati-salba-gylmota...  
>  Emperor of shade, descend from the dark...  
>  Honor sin-soaked contracts of kinship;  
>  lead your beast unto me.  
>  \- Sydney Losstarot, in the catacombs of Lea Monde


End file.
